Girl
Don’t, won’t, mustn’t, shouldn’t, never! All common words heard from mothers every day. In Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” so many “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” are listed off that the reader feels as though they’re back being lectured by their own mother! Kincaid writes with such an overbearing tone that any reader would feel the pressures of being a girl. And that is exactly what she meant to do; Kincaid uses “Girl” to almost bully the reader into feeling the claustrophobic pressures a girl feels, but not only that she challenges the reader to imagine the strenuous rules and regulations girls must face when it comes to their sexuality.
Upon taking a closer look the reader can see that the “short story” is much more like a poem.
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It actually turns out that the story is one long run-on sentence made by a mother like figure to her child. The mother figure is symbolic, it is never directly stated she is the mother, she is more representative of the demands and expectations placed on girls in general. This symbolism and syntax is no accident. Kincaid made the story one sentence so that you can feel as overwhelmed and conflicted as the girl does. Therefore the writing style reflects one of the themes, (crazy I know)! This feeling of being overwhelmed is not specific to this individual girl, though. You will see that the girl is never given a name. She is just the girl. This is done so that the reader understands that this is, in fact, how girls grow up – practically nameless and with unheard voices. Kincaid was trying to make the reader understand these suffocated feelings but she was also doing more…. A very prominent goal of Kincaid’s is to expose the reader to see how strict and restrained girls (and women’s) sexuality is.
The mother repeatedly says “not like the slut you are so bent on becoming” as if to scare the girl into staying “pure.” Because she does this the reader can not only see but feel the intense and unyielding pressure she puts on her girl to be unsoiled and unsexual. She makes the girl feel guilt and shame, as if her body and her actions were so totally wrong. She doesn’t want her “hem to come down.” She is very concerned with how she acts in front of men “this is how to behave in the presence of a man… and this way they don’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming.” She later says to her “you are not a boy.” In these instances it becomes clear that not only does she want her girl to be good, but she also wants her to be conserved and concealing (that way she doesn’t seem a slut). Kincaid is making you feel these pressures and the confusion so that you can better understand an appreciate the struggle of being female.
Kincaid wants the reader to see the injustice of being a girl. She wants you to feel the anxiety and the pressure of concealing your sexuality and struggling to take care of the home while being perfect and unsoiled. The mother tells her how “you iron your father’s khaki pants” and how “you iron your fathers khaki shirt so it doesn’t have a crease.” The reader can see that not only must she be very conservative in
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dress and demeanor but she must also take on the role of being the housewife (in this case submissively). Kincaid want you to know that there are multiple (high) standards to be met. Another very important detail about the story “Girl” is that the girl interjects into the mother figure’s long-winded spiel twice.
In both of the times when she speaks what she says is italicized. Her words are not even important or loud enough to break up the long paragraph with quotation marks. This is a very small detail as far as syntax goes but it means a lot to the story. It represents the girl’s relationship with her not only her mother, but all people. And it’s not only representative of the girl in the story, but all girls. She is symbolic of girls as a whole because she tries to interject, in fact, she even tries to defend herself, “but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school” but she in overlooked, and because she tries to ask a question and be heard. She is just shot down, just like so many girls (women) all over the world
today. With the details clear and the syntax sound, it is obvious that Jamica Kincaid was trying to open your eyes to the world of a girl. She pulls you and, and like a nagging mother, won’t let you go until she had finished giving you a piece of her mind. Thankfully, Kincaid is making you listen to something that will give you understanding and insight. Unlike the mother figure in the story, who’s only goal is to warn, criticize, and strictly instruct, Jamaica Kincaid was telling the reader that to be a girl is to be confined to the home, submissive, and restricted sexually! Jamaica Kincaid may be oppresses as a woman and may have been told to be weak but she is strong and bold and writes to exploit these injustices. These are ideas that may be slightly familiar to the reader but is never so clear and bold and true like it is in Jamica Kincaid’s “Girl.” And your eyes could not have been open in a better way now it’s up to us to not just see but to understand.
In “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid’s use of repetitive syntax and intense diction help to underscore the harsh confines within which women are expected to exist. The entire essay is told from the point of view of a mother lecturing her daughter about how to be a proper lady. The speaker shifts seamlessly between domestic chores—”This is how you sweep a house”—and larger lessons: “This is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all…” (Kincaid 1). The way in which the speaker bombards the girl overwhelms the reader, too. Every aspect of her life is managed, to the point where all of the lessons she receives throughout her girlhood blur together as one run-on sentence.
In the Antiguan culture women are taught to take care of and treat men like kings. At the beginning of the story it was hard to tell what the relationship between the two characters were because there was no names and no description on the characters. The mother in the short story gives her daughter advice about how to live life the right way and about how to take care of the household. For example, the mother told the child “This is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming;” (Kincaid 699). The mother uses her words of wisdom in order to impact her life. The word “Slut” expresses how the mother really feels about women in the Antiguan culture. The mother also shows how she is concerned about the way her daughter represents herself. The mother is scared that one day her daughter will become a “slut”. The message that Jamaica Kincaid was trying to make in the story “Girl” was that she wants to give teenage girls advice and she wants to teach them how to act like ladies. Jamaica Kincaid expresses this message by showing how powerful the mother’s voice was and how
This is because the mother assumes that a woman’s reputation and respectability predisposes to the quality of a woman’s life in the community. The mother inherently concludes that there are only two types of women: respectable women and “sluts.” Through the entire story, the mother often implicates the daughter of being bent on becoming a “slut.” Her suspicion doesn’t appear to be aggravated by the daughter’s behavior. The daughter resembles good behavior; this is shown by her first input in the story, “but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school” (171).
In the short story, “Girl,” the narrator describes certain tasks a woman should be responsible for based on the narrator’s culture, time period, and social standing. This story also reflects the coming of age of this girl, her transition into a lady, and shows the age gap between the mother and the daughter. The mother has certain beliefs that she is trying to pass to her daughter for her well-being, but the daughter is confused by this regimented life style. The author, Jamaica Kincaid, uses various tones to show a second person point of view and repetition to demonstrate what these responsibilities felt like, how she had to behave based on her social standing, and how to follow traditional customs.
Unrealistically, the narrator believes that she would be of use to her father more and more as she got older. However, as she grows older, the difference between boys and girls becomes more clear and conflicting to her.
It is said that a girl can often develop some of her mother's characteristics. Although, in their works, Kincaid, Hong Kingston and Davenport depict their protagonists searching for their own identities, yet being influenced in different ways by their mothers. Jamaica Kincaid's poem Girl, is about a young woman coming-of-age receiving helpful advice from her mother. In this poem, Kincaid addresses several issues where a mother's influence is beneficial to a young woman's character. The mother, or speaker, in Girl, offers advice to her daughter- advice that she otherwise would not learn without being told or shown. The mother advises the daughter about everyday tasks, and how to go about them properly (in her opinion).
This paper argued that the mother in Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” is loving towards her daughter because the mother is taking time to teaching her daughter how to be a woman, and because she wants to protect her in the future from society’s judgment. Kincaid showed that the mother cared and loved her daughter. The mother wants her daughter to know how to run a home and how to keep her life in order to societies standards. Alongside practical advice, the mother instructs her daughter on how to live a fulfilling
Suppression of the female sexuality has been a constant struggle for young ladies for thousands of years, and is still considered a problem today. In the short story “Girl” (1984), by Jamaica Kincaid, an overbearing mother is instructing her daughter on how to be the perfect lady within the village where they live. The mother explains the tasks in a list and points out her daughter’s imperfections throughout the story. After conducting a formalist reading of the short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, it is shown that readers are able to identify the major theme of rejection of female sexuality through the author’s use of narration, and writing style.
He mentions how far women have come since his grandmother's day, but realizes the country as a whole has more room to grow. He mentions how tough it can be for women to juggle a demanding career while raising a family. Both text reference what honor motherhood is but they also admit the demanding workforce can determine how successful a mother they can be. Women today may not face slavery, but they face double standards that limit them to be successful professionals and parents.
The mother cautions her daughter endlessly, emphasising on how much she wants her to realize her role in the society by acting like a woman in order to be respected by the community and the world at large. Thus, Jamaica Kincaid’s work argues that traditional gender roles are learned because at a young age children are taught how to act masculine and feminine. According to Carol Baileys article on Performance and the Gendered Body in Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Girl’ “The poem is a fictional representation of the double-edged tendencies which involve child-rearing practices in many Caribbean societies: as the mother provides guidelines for living, the moments of care are constantly weakened by the severity evident in what the mother is actually saying and the fact that her daughter is lectured with little room for discussion” (Carol Bailey 106). The instructions in the poem “Girl” reveal an effective performance of gender roles assigned to women in the Caribbean societies, which shows significant acts in domestic, social, and other spheres.
The short story, Girl, by Jamaica Kincaid, can very easily be related directly to the author’s own life. Kincaid had a close relationship with her mother until her three younger brothers were born. After the birth of her brothers, three major values of her mother became apparent to Kincaid. In turn, Kincaid used the three values of her mother to write the short story, Girl. Specifically, these values led to three themes being formed throughout the story. It appears in the short story that the mother was simply looking out for her daughter; however, in all reality, the mother is worried about so much more. Kincaid uses the themes of negativity towards female sexuality, social norms and stereotypes, and the significant
As humans, we often try to blend in with society in various ways. We try to blend in by changing the way we talk, act, or dress. In the short story, “Girl,” author Jamaica Kincaid uses the mother’s past experiences to guide her daughter in the changed world. She also uses repression of being a woman in her time, to change her daughter’s views on society and their culture. Kincaid uses the way a woman should dress, do their duties, and behave as themes to convey that women should respect themselves.
The young girl in the story is struggling with finding her own gender identity. She would much rather work alongside her father, who was “tirelessly inventive” (Munro 328), than stay and work with her mother in the kitchen, depicted through, “As soon as I was done I ran out of the house, trying to get out of earshot before my mother thought of what to do next” (329). The girl is torn between what her duties are suppose to be as a woman, and what she would rather be doing, which is work with her father. She sees her father’s work as important and worthwhile, while she sees her mother’s work as tedious and not meaningful. Although she knows her duties as a woman and what her mother expects of her, she would like to break the mould and become more like her father. It is evident that she likes to please her father in the work she does for him when her father says to the feed salesman, “Like to have you meet my new hired man.” I turned away and raked furiously, red in the face with pleasure (328-329). Even though the young girl is fixed on what she wants, she has influences from both genders i...
Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” shows in society how a woman should be placed and what it means to be a woman. A women doesn’t question her partner, instead she is subservient to him. A woman’s duties include staying at home taking care of the children and cooking; while the man works and brings home the money. A feministic approach to Kincaid’s “Girl” points to the idea of the stereotypes that women can only be what they do in the home, they should only be pure and virtuous, and their main focus should be satisfying their husband.
Later on in the story, the narrator begins to act different from the social norms. It may have been portrayed as her going mental. “I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for. Round and round and round – round and round and round – it makes me dizzy!” (Gilman 325). The narrator also notices how other women were affected by the pressure and social stigma from society. “Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over” (Gilman 325). Many other women in that era are being suppressed, not just the